The results are in, and Will Smith’s midas touch was no match for M. Night Shyamalan’s kiss of death, as their collaboration, After Earth, opened in third place, behind 6 Fast 6 Furious and Now You See Me, with $27 million. The studio had been planning for $35-40 million.

Will and Jaden Smith’s sci-fi adventure After Earth wound up in third place this weekend with a very disappointing $27 million. That’s in between last year’s notorious sci-fi bombs John Carter ($30.2 million) and Battleship ($25.5 million). It’s also half of MIB 3 ($54.6 million) and The Karate Kid ($55.7 million), which were the last two movies from Will and Jaden, respectively.

The audience was 51 percent male and 60 percent were 25 years of age or older. They gave the movie a “B” CinemaScore, which suggests middling word-of-mouth that should keep the movie from holding on well. Add in the fact that Man of Steel is on the immediate horizon, and it’s unlikely that After Earth winds up with more than $70 million or so. [BoxOfficeMojo]

Which is bad, considering the budget is estimated to have been around $130 million, making After Earth a certified flop unless it kicks ass worldwide. (Which it might, foreigners love Will Smith almost as much as Johnny Depp). The media pile-on has been so bad that it’s actually tempting to, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, feel bad for poor M. Night Shyamalan. Of course, it would be a lot easier to feel sympathy if, after five straight sub-50%-on-RottenTomatoes movies in a row, and three below 20, he could just once admit that something he made wasn’t perfect, instead of blaming the audience and our ignorant, unworldly lack of European sensibilities. IT WAS ABOUT TREES, YOU FLIPPER-HANDED SIMPLETONS! Letting M. Night direct again, and another vanity project for Will Smith and his dumb kid no less, Sony was basically daring audiences not show up. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

I just hope this doesn’t affect Jaden’s line of drop-crotch pants. I’m sure one little setback isn’t enough to stop a veritable fashion revolution.

Not to mention, once the reviews started coming out most were saying Will Smith is hardly a presence in the movie anyway and it’s 90% his dipshit kid running around. I’m sure that kept some people away.

I think Vince’s picks were the safest next to Bret’s, and I’m kind of amazed at Laremy’s pick for Man Of Steel to bomb.
With Snyder/Nolan at the helm? Really?
I also don’t think Lone Ranger will bomb but I’m really hoping it does.

I hope Man of Steel is as good as it looks and it makes a ton of money, but picking it to bomb isn’t that out of left field IMO. Singer was a hot commodity when he made Returns and that was heavily hyped, rightfully so, and look what happened there.

Even Sucker Punch, uneven mess that it was, still came out ahead. He will be known for 300 his entire career. He’s a solid director, and when he has the right producers to reign him in, he makes hits. With Nolan behind him on Man of Steel, I think he’s gonna kill it. Also the marketing for MoS has been way better than Superman Returns.
Not to Monday Morning QB too hard, but After Earth would have been number one with a bullet for my Bomb pick, despite Big Willy’s sometimes unpredictable mojo. Jaden can’t act his way out of a paper bag, it was kinda obvious in Karate Kid.

You’re right on about Singer, but he had bad marketing, an untested Brandon Routh and Squint Leastwood as Lois Lane to balance out Spacey’s perfect casting.

Numbers aren’t everything though. Hell, even the pure numbers for Superman Returns are pretty good and don’t reflect properly on that movie’s reputation.

With Snyder, I’m pretty sure Dawn Of The Dead is the only movie he has made that can more or less get a unanimous “yeah that was really good” reaction from everyone. Watchmen is divisive as hell, the 300 backlash was quick and fierce, Sucker Punch is a punchline most places i’ve seen, and nobody remembers that fucking Owl movie.

Not to mention, Henry Cavill ain’t exactly “tested” either. He’s had some gigs but he’s far from known to a mass audience.

That’s Mr. Night’s gig, he usually gets incredibly good actors that you would never believe would participate in a truly terrible movie. It’s pretty amazing.

Also, I’m not a big comic book guy. Most of what I know comes from the movies. 300 was good on its own merits, but suffered as many movies do from bro-backlash. It was a like a historical Fast & Furious. Watchmen blew me away. Since I’d never heard of it before the movie, I was impressed.

Henry Cavill is a great actor. There is a glut of British talent in Hollywood right now, and I hope to hell he can bust out in this movie.

Disclaimer: I loved Watchmen. I’ve read that book a dozen times over since high school and I thought Snyder did great with what was an extremely challenging property to translate. Aside from The Invisibles, I can’t think of a tougher graphic novel to translate onto the big screen.

Cavill had Tristan + Isolde, Stardust, a big run on The Tudors, and I thought he was good in The Immortals. I wouldn’t call him untested. Especially compared to Routh who had an episode of Will and Grace under his belt before he showed up at a costume party and magically got cast as friggin Superman.

Thank you Vince! I’m so happy someone else agrees with me on The Illusionist vs. The Prestige debate. I loved The Illusionist but thought The Prestige was so-so (with both so’s coming from casting David Bowie).

In reading the trendy/awful way Weiner Smiff spells “Misfits”, I like to imagine Glenn Danzing, sitting on a throne of skulls and dumpster bricks pounding his fist onto his table and growling “FOILED AGAIN!”

Will Smith should probably fire his PR rep immediately. I can’t believe nobody in the Smith camp couldn’t figure out William talking like an arrogant, self-righteous douchebag that sounds like (and is) full of shit during the press tour was a bad thing.

The problem with celebrity is that, when you’re successful, most people who earn their living from you in any way are going to be incredibly hesitant to ever tell you no. Why do you think Justin Bieber acts likes such a turbodouche? His manager is absolutely not going to risk a conversation that starts with “Hey, Justin, I think you might need to tone it down.” and ends with “Yo, manager guy, YOU’RE FUCKING FIRED”. And the same thing applies to Will Smith (though I wouldn’t expect Will Smith to necessarily yell at whoever he was firing. If he told his PR guy (or his agent or whoever) that this was what he thought was a good idea, then I guarantee you their thought long and hard about how much they enjoyed cashing their Smith-related paycheck before decided to just shut the fuck up about how they really felt and say “Okay, Mr. Smith.”